Wheeler spent the first couple hours of that frigid Friday morning posted under a pine tree, seeking shelter from the biting wind. The weather became too much to bear around 9 a.m., and he decided to push through a dense thicket to get the blood flowing and possibly kick out a deer.

Wheeler quickly found some fresh tracks in the brush, and his quarry wasn’t far behind.

“This buck jumped up, started crashing through the thicket,” Wheeler recalled. “I could see the tips of its horns, but I couldn’t see the deer. It was just a quick flash, but I figured it was a pretty tall rack if I could see the tips.

"The last place I heard it make any noise was around this lone pine. I thought it probably laid right back down, so I snuck up to it as close as I could. I found a stick and threw it on the other side of that tree, and that thing was right there. It just jumped up and came blasting back towards me. It jumped across a little creek and that was the first time I could really see the deer. I said, ‘Holy cow, this thing is huge.’”

The buck paused next to a grove of poplar trees, and Wheeler fired off a quick shot. He ran over to where the buck had stood a moment ago, but the wily creature had seemingly pulled a disappearing act.

Wheeler decided the buck must have forded a nearby pond and, sure enough, he discovered fresh tracks and some blood on the other side of the body of water.

“I checked all around there where a wounded deer would bed down,” Wheeler said. “I couldn’t find it. Finally I caught a fresh track, and I yelled out, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ And the deer was right there. It jumped up and crashed into the brush, off into this wooded section.”

What followed was a fast-paced game of catch me if you can that left Wheeler breathless. On more than one occasion, he thought the buck had slipped away, dooming him to years of what-might-have-beens.

Finally, the buck stayed in view for a second too long. Wheeler fired once more and the buck dropped.

The chase was over.

“I just sat there trying to catch my breath, watching the deer for two, three, four minutes,” Wheeler said. “I knew it was a nice deer with a big rack, but the closer I got to it, it just seemed like the rack was growing as I was on my way up there. Then when I got to it I realized, ‘Wow, I got the monster.’”

Wheeler radioed hunting buddy Brenden Smalt, and the pair hauled the deer out of the woods.

They spent the rest of the day on a whirlwind tour of Wheeler, Prattsburgh, Bath and Hemlock, N.Y. Everywhere they went, people pulled over to check out the monster buck in the cab of Wheeler’s truck. Photos of the deer had already gone viral, spreading from cell phone to cell phone.

“That was incredible. I think half of Prattsburgh knew about it before we even got it out of the woods,” Wheeler said. “Brenden took a picture on his phone and sent it to everyone he knew, and it just grew from there. Then it was the same way with Bath. A lot of those guys already had a picture of it on their phone. It was pretty amazing.”

Paul Daniels, an official measurer, came to check out the deer at the Edge of Time Trading Post in Prattsburgh. Daniels gave it a 181 gross green score. The rack lost points for broken and uneven tines, rounding out at a 150 net.

The rack ultimately fell short of a Boone & Crockett, but cleared requirements for the New York Big Buck Club and the Northeast Buck Club.

Wheeler then took it to Scott Samolis Taxidermy in Hemlock. Samolis suspected the deer was only 2.5 years old, a fact confirmed by the Department of Environmental Conservation a week later in Avon, N.Y.

“Two guys came out to age the jawbone,” Wheeler said. “They said it’s fairly light wear, probably around 2.5 years old. They wanted to know what kind of deer it was, and then how big it was after I told them it was a monster buck. I whipped out the pictures and they started laughing. They said, ‘Holy cow, we have these pictures on our computer already.’

“They said if it made it to 4 or 5 years old, it would be the new world record for whitetailed deer. I didn’t realize the monster that I had.”

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